false, do you have any sense of how pervasive the problem is that people believe that to be a fact? >> well, it wouldn't be a particular one that we have captured. >> but just broadly speaking. >> yeah, take the homicide rate. >> yeah. >> if you take a look at the number of homicides per 100,000 people, that has come down over the course of time in the united states. those are numbers, you can look them up, the government provides them. and there are cases like that that are important. >> great stuff. great stuff. interesting stuff. really interesting stuff. steve ballmer, thank you very much. that does it for us this morning. stephanie rule picks up the coverage right now. >> thanks so much, michael. good morning. i'm stephanie rool with a lot to cover starting with an nbc news exclusive. someone else was in that don junior meeting, a man suspected of having ties to russian counterintelligence was in the room and we've got the breaking details as the president stands by his eldest son. >> i think from a practical

standpoint most people would have taken that meeting. >> and his son-in-law, jared kushner, under serious fire. new calls for the president's son-in-law to lose his security clearance. >> jared kushner should be fired or he should resign. >> plus, no margin for error. the new republican health care plan officially out with numerous senators still on the fence and they cannot afford to lose one more. >> this bill doesn't repeal obamacare. >> i'm very disappointed because i've been very vocal about my concerns. >> all right. you know what we are going to start with, that nbc news exclusive, a former soviet counterintelligence officer with alleged ongoing ties to russian intelligence also happened to be in that controversial meeting last june with don junior, paul manafort and jared kushner. i want you to stay here because we have an amazing team of reporters and guests to break all of it down, but taking you first to nbc's kristen welker live in paris where president

trump attended that high profile parade this morning for bastille day. kristen, what can you tell us about this massive bombshell? >> reporter: steph, this all unfolded as president trump was wrapping up his visit here, as you pointed out he started his day attending that bastille day event. and he is now headed home as the russia controversy is only deepening. nbc news has learned exclusively that in that meeting between the president's eldest son, donald trump jr., and that kremlin-linked attorney, natalia veselnistkaya, she was accompanied by another person. that person a russian-born american lobbyist who some officials think still has ties to russian counterintelligence. he has a background in russia counterintelligence. now, veselnistkaya not confirming the identity of the person she was accompanied by, but she does confirm there was another person in that meeting. so this adds another layer,

another texture to this ongoing controversy for the president. and really raises questions about why this information wasn't disclosed by the principle players initially. as you said at the top president trump defended his son during that news conference yesterday saying that he is a good person, saying that he was merely looking for opposition research and just about anyone would have taken that meeting. a little bit of a reality check there. of course it's not unusual for people working with campaigns to seek out opposition research. what is highly unusual is that you would do so thinking that the person that you're getting it from has links to the russian government, as was indicated by an e-mail that donald trump jr. received. now, we have been in touch with an attorney for donald trump jr. this morning. we are still working with him on more clarification, but bottom line he says, look, trump junior couldn't have known the background of this person who was in the room. we've also reached out to representatives for paul manafort as well as jared kushner. so far no reaction. no reaction from the president's

outside counsel. the president right now headed home on air force one to his resort in bedminister, new jersey, and that is where he will spend the weekend, steph, as we continue to monitor this still-developing story, steph. >> all right, kristen, there's a lot to cover. i want to bring in two msnbc contributors, mark leeb vich and probably these days probably suffering from a broken heart. mark, i want to start with you, a russian lobbyist with suspected ties to russian counterintelligence also in the meeting, a meeting that days ago -- first of all, everyone and their brother is saying this is a nothing burger, nothing burger, at the very at least nothing burgers seriously give people heartburn because now more information drips out. what do you make of that? >> you kind of stepped on my line. i was going to go with food poisoning at this point. i mean, i think in the short term -- i'm curious, i think

like everyone is, to hear what donald trump jr.'s response is to this. i assume it will be something along the lines of, you know, he didn't know the background, he wasn't aware. again, this was a brief meeting. it will be something in line, maybe, with what they said a few days ago. this is an interesting group of people to be talking about adoption, right? >> yes, because if you remember last saturday it was all about the orphans. >> it was about adoption and then opposition research. at the very least what the identity or what the presence of this person does or is it just adds another layer of dubiousness to the idea that this was, you know, at least an opposition research meeting. it just adds many layers of complexity to it. and the problem is, or one of the many problems is for the trump camp is there were a lot of principles in this meeting. and you need answers from all of them. and you need them to line up. look, i mean bob mueller has a

lot to work with at this point it sounds like. and we'll see, you know, if these leads lead to something even more damning, but i think at the very least it certainly makes a mockery of what the stories were coming out of that camp earlier in the week. >> principles in the meeting, jared kushner who anthony scaramuci once described as modern day hamilton, sean spicer, well, he had a very limited role for a very limited time. michael steel, i want to share with you what don junior said earlier this week when he sat down with sean hannity. >> did you ever meet with any other person from russia that you know? >> i don't even know. i've probably met with other people from russia. not in the context of actual formalized meeting or anything like that because why would i? i'm more than happy to be transparent about it and i'm more than happy to cooperate with everyone. >> so as far as you know as far as this incident's concerned this is all of it? >> this is everything. this is everything. >> okay. more than happy to be transparent. i guess in his mind a formal meeting means you're wearing a

coat and tie, because how could you possibly say that's everything and now we've got this? >> i think it works along the lines of a general belief that no one will know what actually happened because there was no third party source to validate or corroborate who was in the meeting. but, you know, we have a press corps, we have individuals as we've learned in this administration who do like to talk. and that information gets out. the drip, drip, drip, i've said it now for six months, the drip, drip, drip from this campaign and now into this administration will be its death nail. and it rains every frigin day for the republican party and they better wake their butts up -- >> why is the republican party letting this happened? >> they're scared of one-tenth of 1% of a base that is lockstep with donald trump. and the leadership is frozen. they have cement around their feet and they refuse to move. they can't get an agenda passed, seven years health care, this is

a joke. infrastructure won't happen, tax reform, forget about it. because the focus right now is on getting to the bottom of the crap that is building up around this administration that is weighing down the party. if they don't wake up, there will be no party going into next year. >> is it -- >> it's all of it. >> paul ryan raid e raised a lot of money in a fundraiser and who wrote one of the biggest steps? the mercer family, in lockstep with president trump. >> michael steele put it exactly right. the more it's about russia, it's only going to be about russia. with all this the further and further away we get from any conservative agenda. you talked about it before, there are serious people in the white house who wanted to push forward with things like infrastructure, with things like tax reform. the more interesting question is, yes, i think they're playing to the 40% base that has stuck with trump. the issue is are the american people and american voters going to connect this morass, this moscow linked mess they're in day after day with only trump or

the republican party more broadly? are they going to see the failure to move ahead with this agenda? which is critical to the american people, are they going to connect it? is it 2018 and ships going down for the republicans? i don't see putting forward the most -- >> ironically that's their saving grace because the democrats are equally incompetent at putting together any plan. at this point in the 2010 cycle i had an idea of how it was going to go after the democrats on health care. this team on the democratic side have no clue. if you listen to the party leadership, they're like space cadets on steroids. they have no idea how to come at donald trump. and i keep telling them, donald trump is not your problem. you have to have the conversation with the base of the party, yes, but expand that out to include people who are sitting there right now going i don't know if i like all this crazy, show me something different. >> they don't know how to come at donald trump? maybe they should use mark kasowitz advice and move on

them. i want to go back to how does the white house handle this? over the last few days when you look at the surrogates out there speaking defending the white house, we're back to the campaign rodeo of kellyanne conway, her visual aids and sebastian gorka, but you've got some serious people to megan's point in the white house. how are they going to manage all of this news that's coming across? >> i mean i think if precedent is a guide here, i mean clumsily. look, i don't think even the best messaging, the best white house operation you could put together would know how to handle this. i do think that the parallel universe of what's happening now on capitol hill, you know, especially with health care, is kind of just as big a game because the russia story, every republican senator who's talking about this, you know, bill that may or may not happen is going to be asked about russia today. meanwhile they're getting no guidance from the white house at all either on the health care bill or on what to say about russia. so it's not just that there's a vacuum of information coming out

of whether it's the don junior camp or the jared camp or the president himself, it's that there's no -- i mean there's just no trickle down of anything coherent. you can't look to any infrastructure in the white house for any kind of guidance here on how to deal with this. >> what is donald trump going to do here though? donald trump defends himself, never apologizes, thinks he does nothing wrong. yet when people in his universe burn him or do anything of sdaj, he dropkicks them, whether it's paul manafort, carter page or corey lewandowski. i want to share what trump said yesterday as he stood on the podium next to emmanuel macron defending don junior. >> i think from a practical standpoint most people would have taken that meeting. it's called opposition research, or even research into your opponent. and honestly i think the press made a very big deal over something that really a lot of people would do. >> really a lot of people would do. he goes onto say that don junior is a good kid, 39 years old, the

same age as emmanuel macron. this weekend when they are camped out in bedminister, donald trump's got to be embarrassed if not angry with don junior for the continued drip, drip, drip. does he turn his back on him? >> i don't think he turns his back on his son and i'm not that convinced that this is a surprise to donald trump. >> really? >> at this stage you have to put everything on the table. you know, if your going to sit back and say this may or may not have happened or we're just not going to deal with this part of it, then you're not completing the rest of the story because, trust me, it will drip out at some point. and that's the problem they have is that they don't know how the leak is going to be realized. they don't know where it's going to come from. and when it does, the only thing particularly when it touches on the family you're going to see the president do is going to standby his family. donald trump jr. is not corey lewandowski, all right? so there's not going to be this, you know, okay, i can do this sort of heisman with him. it's going to be, no, this is my boy. and this is my son. and, you know, he's got my back,

i got his. until what? you think he's going to throw him under the bus? really? you believe that? >> i don't. but then what are the rest of the people in the white house going -- >> that's my frustration. >> i have spoken to people myself to those inside the white house this week that say i hate the way we're handling this, but you have the white house staff and the royal family. >> the royal family first. >> exactly. he's not going to dropkick his own son. here's the issue about it. we talk about drip, drip, drip, this is don junior put into e-mail, i love it. >> i like it, i love it, i want some more of it. >> about information clearly coming from russian government officials. what else is his e-mails if he's putting that in e-mail sns i'm not convinced that we're not going to see a lot more that bob mueller doesn't already have more that's in e-mail. >> that's right. >> this is stupidity, pure and simple. does it get more nefarious than that? i think a lot of people suspect so. >> mark, before we go, jared, ivanka, don junior, stay just as close to the president as always after this? >> um, probably.

look, i don't think familial loyalty would be -- it's how they've run their business for a long time. and, you know, i don't want to speculate on their closeness or not closeness, but i think the larger problem is, again, information is flying from a lot of different directions and they might be related but they all have their own teams of lawyers and they're not related. look, these agendas get very, very, very hairy very, very quickly. >> all right. important to note they've run their family business that way for a long time. it's a business that's gone bankrupt multiple times, jared kushner's family has a building 666 fifth avenue that seriously needs financing right now. so whether it's a family business or big business, it's not necessarily perfect. all right, we're going to take a break. next, much more on nbc's exclusive report, two people who worked in intelligence join me on how much this changes the investigation and what a former russian counterintelligence

agent would be doing in the meeting. but first, how about a little nostalgia for you. this one is really going to make michael leap. former presidents clinton and george w. bush sat down together as part of the graduation ceremony for the 2017 presidential leadership scholarship program. and they gave some advice for politicians. >> the best thing can happen to you when you're in politics is to be consistently underestimated. >> i was pretty good at that. gos gos broke into a house owned by three bears. she ate some porridge, broke the baby bear's chair, and stole some jewelry, a flat-screen tv, and a laptop. luckily the geico insurance agency had helped the bears with homeowners insurance. they were able to replace all their items... ...including a new chair from crate and barrel. call geico and see how easy it is to switch and save on homeowners insurance.

hope you didn't think you could chill on this friday because we have got more exclusive nbc reporting. a person believed to have ties to russian intelligence was also at that controversial meeting with the former russian lawyer and donald trump jr. all right. listen up, here's exactly what we know. the additional individual in that meeting is a russian-american lobbyist and a former soviet counterintelligence officer. he is suspected by some u.s. officials of having ongoing ties to russian intelligence. the lobbyist denies any current ties to russian intel. i want to find out what this all means. let's bring in former cia analyst fred fliets, senior vice president for policy and programs at the center for security policy. and mika oyang director of the national security program for third way. both worked on the house intelligence committee. fred for republicans, mika for democrats. fred, start with you. as a former cia guy, what do you think when you hear that a former counterintelligence officer was also in the meeting.

for a layperson like me, i know nothing. >> well, let me first say it's great to be here. i don't think that don junior should have taken this meeting. i think this was a rookie mistake. but i'm listening to these reports this morning about this alleged former soviet counterintelligence officer. i like to point out that this was an american citizen that there had been reports before of russian intelligence officers trying to meet with the trump campaign that turned out to be false. and we don't know who these officials are who say they are concerned this individual has ties to russian intelligence. we know there's a large array of former and current intelligence policy officials who do not like donald trump and they may have made this up. >> but, fred, even if this last person was rob goldstone's friend from summer camp, if the idea here is transparency, if that's what donald trump jr. told sean hannity a few days ago and don trump said himself yesterday we'll tell you exactly what happened, why not come

forward? especially if it was this grand big nothing burger. >> this is an american citizen. we don't know that don junior knew that he had emigrated from russia, that he had dual american/russian citizenship. an american citizen was participating in this meeting. why would he report that? >> why not give full transparency? listen, this thing is drip, drip, dripping in hopes of getting this story to get out of the news cycle. why not come forward to say here's who's in the meeting, boom? >> well, i mean, another question is why is msnbc not saying who this individual is? i wonder whether there's some angle here, maybe he's a democratic operative and your network doesn't want the american people to know. >> mika. >> fred, let's not get all con speartorial on this. i mean, he should have reported this meeting. there was very clearly a russian citizen in the meeting, so the meeting and who was in it should have been reported to the fbi in the first -- or in the initial filing of his sb-86, not in the second or third correction to

that. and, look, he should have known better. the trump campaign should have known better. they should have known that the russians are always trying to get close to people in power and looked on this meeting from the very first meeting, over the very first contact really suspiciously. you've got to be really careful about russians bearing gifts. they're not really on your side. >> fred. >> well, there's this sentence in the e-mail from mr. goldstone about russian government assistance to the trump campaign and that seems to be the focus of this whole scandal, but why would a celebrity promoter who hangs out with tina turner and miss universe know that kind of thing? why would the russians tell them that? that's why i'm really skeptical about whether this really amounts to anything at all other than bad judgment on the part of don junior from taking the meeting. i think the optics is a big concern. but whether this is a real counterintelligence question we just don't know yet. >> that being the case, fred, then don junior and jared kushner have had an opportunity

since last saturday when this meeting was characterized by the white house about russian adoptions? why not simply say this was nothing, here's exactly who was in the room and it amounted to nothing? why is it that we're put in a position where we have to dig, dig, dig? >> well, you know, you'll have to ask them that. i mean, from what i've seen this meeting was misrepresented to don junior as opposition research against hillary clinton. basically he was lied to by goldstone to get this russian lawyer in the room. i think that's really the issue here. and another issue is how did this woman get into the country? why was she given a special exemption on her visa by the attorney general -- obama's attorney general to let her in the country? >> then if the trump team were duped, why not raise their hand straight away and say something foul has happened, we want to report it? >> i think the trump team has said that. mr. trump has said that. mr. trump raised this issue when he was in paris. >> look, i think it's really difficult for fred to go out and defend this meeting when we

don't know exactly what happened here. they're putting all of the republican surrogates in a terrible position. they know what was said in the meeting and pretty soon special prosecutor mueller will know what was said in the meeting if he doesn't already. so it's really difficult for people to say and characterize these meetings as one thing or another. we know that the russians were trying to cooperate trump operatives. we know this woman is a russian, you know, russian lawyer with ties to russian government. these are the kinds of things that happen when you're mixing family and business. this is why you need a professional campaign team and why national security professionals were fleeing from the trump campaign. none of them wanted to work with him. and that kind of lack of expertise means that they were really, really vulnerable when it came to russian influence. >> all right. we need to put in perspective while don junior and jared may have rack key, paul manafort is skilled at this. >> exactly. he should have been flagging for

everyone, family and campaign officials alike, you can't be taking these meetings. but he didn't, he went in there. >> fred, mika, here's what i do know, the story's not going anywhere so i hope you'll both come back with me soon. appreciate your time. >> thank you. >> good to be here. >> you are looking live at a news conference held by nancy pelosi and other house democrats on keeping the trump administration accountable. you can see maxine waters there right next to nancy pelosi. we're keeping an eye on it. we'll bring you anything newsworthy that comes up. we're going to take a break. next, the senate releases the new and improved, in their mind improved, version of its health care bill. but two republicans have already said no. is the bill dead? does mitch mcconnell have enough juice to push it through? four seconds on the clock, down by one. championship on the line. erin "the sharpshooter" shanahan fakes left.

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welcome back. it is time now for your morning primer, everything you need to know to get your day started. president donald trump is now on his way back to the united states after joining french president emmanuel macron for bastille day celebrations in paris earlier today. trump will spend the weekend in new jersey at his golf club at home in bedminister. and a ruling from a federal judge in hawaii loosens restrictions on president trump's travel ban. it now allows travel for grandparents, grandchildren,

aunts, uncles and other relatives of people in the u.s. and two israeli police officers were killed this morning after three gunmen opened fire near one of jerusalem's holyist sites. real estate officials say police shot and killed all three attackers. and former president jimmy carter has just been released from the hospital this morning after being treated for dehydration. the 92-year-old had been working outside in the sun on thursday building homes for habitat for humanity in canada. and venus williams heads to her ninth wimbledon final tomorrow after dominating the world's number seven player in the semifinals on thursday. williams says after a long two weeks, quote, this is where i want to be. all right. let's go back to d.c. let's than 24 hours after senate majority leader mitch mcconnell unveiled a revised republican health care bill, senators are already voicing their opposition. so far susan collins of maine and rand paul of kentucky said they would vote against the bill. this means mcconnell cannot afford to lose a single

additional vote. four other senators tell nbc news they're undecided on the new bill. and the president is tweeting about it this morning saying lawmakers need to get to work on replacing obamacare. i believe he called those republicans wonderful. msnbc's gar et headache ek is f story for us. how is this bill different and how could it move forward? >> reporter: the first part of your question, there's a bunch of structural changes in here to make conservatives happy. they put this amendment in to make ted cruz happy, allowing cheaper plans that don't cover as much and allowing people to use hsas to pay for their premiums. they're also sort of throwing money at the problem of getting more moderates onboard. they've upped the amount of money they want to spend on open yoids to $45 billion from $2 billion. there's about a $70 billion fund to offset some of the costs that are going to go to different

states. and there's lots of other nuggets packed in around the edge of this bill that we're going to have a better idea of what they mean and what they do when the cbo report comes out. that's the next big step in figuring out how they might pass this thing. they're expecting to get a cbo score as early as monday or tuesday of next week. yesterday mitch mcconnell said he was confident they would still vote next week. but as you said right now you have the two hard no votes. i spoke to susan collins at length yesterday, she was a very hard no in part because they didn't make any of the changes that she and other moderate senators wanted to see on medicaid. so those four undecided senators i suspect the number's actually significantly higher than that are going to go back home, they're going to talk to their constituents, they're going to talk to their governors and see if they can get around the fact that those medicaid cuts are basically still in this bill and still problematic. and we'll probably know by monday or tuesday whether mitch mcconnell has the votes to even bring this thing to the floor. so it's not dead yet, but they're very much on this knife edge here where if one more person comes out and says they won't vote to debate it, it's possible you see some of those

other undecided people say i'm against it too. >> all right. the health care bill is on life support, how can mitch mcconnell revive it? i want my panel to weigh in. michael steele, republicans are divided here. you have conservatives and moderates. >> uh-huh. >> will rand paul realize, hold on, if i don't let this thing go through and we end up with a sort of bipartisan resolution, that's even worse. why wouldn't those guys say, let's at least get us on the same page? >> well, i think probably because guys like rand paul are arguing for principle position. they had a compact, part of coming into power, if you will, was, hey, we're going to repeal obamacare and we're going to fix it with certain solutions. none of that is in this bill. so this farcical story line that, oh, yeah, this is going to repeal obamacare. well, no, you're keeping in a great deal of taxes to pay for all the goodies you want to hand out to convince moderates that, oh, yeah, you can slide on medicaid. i don't know how rob portman or senator of west virginia come back and go, yeah, okay, we can

live with that now because you sweetened the pot on opioids. it's just not how it works. and the reality is this thing has a cost to it beyond just the dollars. it is how many people are actually going to wind upkeeping their health care when it's all said and done, and i don't think the republicans still have an answer for that. >> if rand paul is sitting on principle and he's not going to shift, is there enough juice to get those moderates onboard? >> no way, not with this bill the way it is. i'm really watching rob portman on this. west virginia is on the front lands. these states that expand in medicaid, there are 170,000 people in west virginia that are on the affordable care act, 50,000 of those people have drug abuse issues. you cannot almost sweeten that opioid pot enough. look, these cuts to medicaid are devastating and they're devastating to the people most at risk here, the elderly, poor children, poor families, poor women who are raising their children. this is a real issue. it is politically toxic, only 20% people support this bill. it's got an 80/20, that makes it almost impossible for them to go

back to their districts with a bill as unpopular as this. that's not to say there isn't some way forward, a conservative way forward on health care. i don't think this is it. >> we haven't gotten the cbo score yet. all right. we're going to take a break, next, back to that nbc news exclusive reporting. there was a fifth person in the room during that meeting with don junior and jared kushner. a former russian counterintelligence officer. what exactly does that even mean? and this just in from don junior's lawyer, ready for this? there was also a sixth person in that meeting, almost like a clown car. but before we go, it has been a strong week for the markets and the opening bell has just rung today. i'm going to call that unchanged, but before we do a trump rally dance, do you want to look at those strong markets? turn your attention to janet yellen.

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i would look at forms now and wonder what do i mark? because i'm everything. and i marked other. discover the story only your dna can tell. order your kit now at ancestrydna.com. you're watching msnbc. breaking news, several brand new developments about that meeting between the trump campaign and a russian lawyer. nbc news exclusively reporting that a fifth person in that meeting, a former russian counterintelligence official was there, but now this. donald trump jr.'s attorney tells nbc that there was a sixth person in the meeting who he says was an interpreter. with me now i've got senator chris van hollen, a democrat from the state of maryland and the chairman of the democratic senatorial campaign committee. senator, first, what is your reaction to this news? >> it's unbelievable, stephanie.

i mean, these guys just can't come clean. and it tells the country that they have a lot to hide. you know, there's an old saying, if you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear. and the fact that they keep hiding stuff i think leads people to the conclusion that there's a lot more there. and the truth will be very harmful to the trump campaign and the trump administration. so unbelievable they didn't disclose. they only disclose once the news media, whether it's "new york times" or nbc gets the story, that's not coming clean. so i think this is just going to be more trouble for the trump administration and going back to the narrative that the russian government was there to try to help donald trump during the campaign and all that that entails. >> now, it's not new news that people have taken issue, many democrats, with president trump's family being part of the administration. at this point does jared kushner need to lose his security

clearance, maybe his job? >> stephanie, i'm not sure about that. i think the special prosecutor needs to look into all these issues. we need to get the facts. the issue of course goes to intent in filling out his security clearance. but what we do know is there has been a pattern of concealing information. and the more that pattern holds, the more i think the american public on a bipartisan basis is going to conclude that this administration is just concealing information from the public. >> all right. let's talk about what matters to the people of maryland, health care. you tweeted that republicans, quote, tried to put deodorant on a skunk but it still stinks to the high heaven, in many ways it smells worse. mitch mcconnell does not need your vote. he only needs 50 republican senators. does he have a better chance of getting them over the line and voting for this, or do you have a better chance of working with them and actually getting something done on a bipartisan level? >> well, the first thing, stephanie, is to defeat this

really unconscionable bill. it is difficult to take a bill as rotten as their first one and make it worse, but they succeeded. it still has that very rotten core, very deep cuts to medicaid, even deeper over time than the house bill, which of course president trump described as mean behind closed doors. and then they still couple that with very big tax breaks to powerful corporate special interests including the pharmaceutical industry. so they still have that rotten core, but they added to that the ted cruz amendment which segregates the insurance market and says to people who think they're invincible, you can get these essentially junk insurance policies, they're cheaper and they're cheaper because when you need them they're not there, everybody else is going to be put into insurance pool that is going to be way too expensive. anybody with preexisting conditions is going to see a huge spike in premiums, which creates what the insurance companies call a death spiral.

premiums go up, they become unaffordable, the only people who stay are the very sickest and it just collapses. so they took a bad bill and made it worse. what we need to do is set this bill aside. we're happy to work with our republican colleagues to improve the exchanges. there's some common sense things that we can do. >> well, you introduced a different kind of bill yesterday, one addressing north korean sanctions. tell us about it. and do you really expect results to come after the previous sanctions haven't done anything against north korea? >> well, i'm pleased to be introducing a bipartisan bill with senator toomey, republican senator from pennsylvania. and if you look at this report that was done last february by a special committee of the united nations, you find out that even though there are lots of international sanctions that have been placed on north korea that there are huge loopholes. and that the north koreans have been very creative about evading those sanctions. so what this proposal does is we model it after what we did with the iran sanctions bill.

we apply what are called secondary sanctions. so it's a way to enforce the sanctions in place. we say to a country or a bank overseas, you have a choice, either you can continue doing business with north korea or you can have access to the u.s. markets including our financial markets. you can't do both. and that was successful at applying greater pressure to iran bringing them to the table. and we believe this is an important tool along with other things to bring the north koreans to the table. they continue to develop nuclear weapons. we know that they recently launched an icbm probably capable of hitting alaska. and they continue that development. so this is a very serious threat. and this is important bipartisan measure to begin to address it. >> all right, senator, thanks so much. i appreciate your time today. have a great weekend. >> thank you. you too. coming up, much more on that bombshell nbc news report, two additional people were in that don junior/jared kushner meeting, one of them a former russian counterintelligence

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lawyer. we have just learned there were not one but two additional people in that room, one of those people according to the associated press is renat, we described this person earlier and didn't have his name, he is the fifth person in the meeting according to the a.p. he's a former russian counterintelligence official. according to nbc news exclusive reporting in just moments ago the attorney for donald trump jr. telling nbc news the sixth person in the meeting was a translater. joining me now is former assistant special watergate prosecutor and back with me my panel, michael steele and megan murphy. >> this kind of confirms the whole russian connection. as you look at this you just see there are more and more interconnections with the russians. paul manafort who was there is a $17 million man who got money from the ukrainian president who was beholden to putin. you've got him being brought to the dance by none other than roger stone, trump's campaign

operative who only a few weeks later was communicating with both sides of the theft of the hillary clinton e-mails. he was communicating with communicating with julian assange the wikileaks person who was publishing this russian hacking. what you're finding here is more and more what were allegations before now seem to have a lot more credibility. >> a lot more credibility. michael, put your former rnc chief hat on. what did gop leaders do with this new news that doesn't stop coming out even if two days ago they said, listen, it was just a meeting. 20 minutes. nothing came of it. the fact that more information comes out and yet another person in the room with a name like this, a person with this kind of profile. how was this not mentioned and how are republicans supposed to manage this information? >> how they're supposed to manage it is very different from

how they wind up managing it. >> why? >> how they're supposed to manage it is to sit down and really get inside the white house and go, look, this has got to stop. you're killing us on the hill. you're killing us out in the country. the brand is taking on water. you've got to put it all on the table. that's how it should go. >> that's not even an option. people inside the white house say as long as it relates to the family, you can't touch it. >> that's what i was getting to. the problem is that within the nucleus there is an inner nucleus which is the family. no one can breach that. that is controlled by donald trump and only he is going to be the one that is going to break that egg open in a way that will allow the party and to allow the leaders on the hill to sort of pivot around this. as long as they hold a defensive posture, you'll see the same posture. >> controlling the white house in terms of kushner, donald trump and the rest of his family as it is to russia, to poland, to places where this is not what

we thought and i think what is so revealing about the trump administration so far, it's the lack of ochechecks and blaalanc have normal behavior in the democratic branch. that people would act the way traditional presidents have acted. they continue to not act that way and to not disclose and the russian revelations keep coming whether it is something worse. it continues every day and it is getting worse by the day. >> we knew we were never going to get normal behavior. people voted for something different. when does this become a real problem for robert mueller? >> a problem not for robert mueller -- >> i think he has to attack all of this. we know at this point that lied on his national security form. most people don't realize. i just went through this process a few months ago for a case that i had where i was getting national security information. you have to be very careful. all of that form makes it quite clear. you go through it for hours

filling this out. my new detail about where he traveled, who he met with and who he met with and various foreign people you have to put that down and then you get visited by an fbi agent. a former fbi agent who sits with you for four or five hours to go through that form to make sure everything is accurate, truthful and complete. it says that throughout the form that if you don't do that you're going to wind up being prosecuted for title 18, united states code, 1001 which is punishable up to five years in prison. >> for me i find it astauoundin that after the fact that jared kushner is adding 100 names. granted, i may be a loser. i don't know 100 people in foreign countries. he has 100 names he happened to leave off the list. >> that, in itself, is proof that he lied. i mean, you have to go through this process to understand how it works. i did this over a couple days filling out this form. i had to go home and get my passport and determine when i

went to certain foreign countries and i had to check my calendars and everybody who does this and seriously looks at this has to do it because the application makes it clear that the failure to do it properly is a crime. >> all right. you had to do this as an attorney. think about all the attorneys the outside attorneys that are now in the mix, donald trump, donald trump jr., jared kushner. president trump's outside attorney. does he have to get this kind of clearance? we're talking about a guy who two nights ago responds to an anonymous e-mail, you know, what does he say? watch your back and i'm going to move on you, bro. this guy needs to get that kind of security clearance? >> i would think so. but will he get it. that's the question. >> it doesn't matter how much money they spend on lawyers because he's still out tweeting and don jr. is giving interviews to hannity. they're not following their lawyers' advice. it's as much as they lawyer up, they're not listening. >> because their base is in tact

with them. so, as long as that lock is in step with what they're doing and people are buying it. they're not going to see a change in the behavior. no incentive for that. >> what if the base has to like you in jail? >> that's right. you're going to wind up in jail. this is a very repeating pattern. i saw this in the watergate investigation where people, you are kind of put in a bind. one hand giving false testimony and lying gets you in jail. on the other hand they're high enough up in the administration that they realize if they go out and tell the truth, politically, they're dead meat. they're kind of stuck between those two poles and what you find, you're going to find it here, too. these people are going to go in and they're going to lie and try to pull the old, i don't recall trick a number of times. >> does that work. >> no, it doesn't. a number of the watergate people are convicted on i don't recalls. but they think it does. it gives them more legal room to

say, oh, i didn't really remember at the time. and perjury is a difficult crime to prove. but, these people are making it easier and easier as more of these facts come out. >> i'm move on you. we'll leave that there. we'll take a break. i can't even believe you said that. still ahead, reaction to the exclusive report from nbc news. we'll speak to a member of the house intelligence committee, as well as a former senior adviser to the clinton campaign. i have a feeling they have a lot to say. because i get a safe driving bonus check every six months i'm accident free. because i don't use my cellphone when i'm driving. even though my family does, and leaves me all alone. here's something else... i don't share it with mom. i don't. right, mom? i have a brand new putter you don't even know about! it's awesome. safe driving bonus checks, only from allstate. sometimes i leave the seat up on purpose. switching to allstate is worth it. going somewhere? whoooo.

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that wraps opvery busy hour. i'm stephanie ruhle more coming up with chris jansing. right now a bombshell and an nbc news exclusive. this morning there are six sources telling nbc there were a fifth and sixth person in that meeting between trump campaign associates and the russian lawyer. one a man who allegedly has deep ties to moscow and the former soviet union. what we know about him. why he was in that room and why no one said anything. president trump now on his way back to the u.s. returning to mounting criticism facing his administration and calls for one top adviser to resign. all of this complicating an already uphill battle on health care. the senate's latest attempt not winning over skeptics. growing doubts that the bill can ever even leave the starting gate. our team set up and ready to go. i want to start with that nbc